Endowment Campaign for ACLS Fellowship Program

FAIN: CH-50844-11

American Council of Learned Societies Devoted to Humanistic Studies (New York, NY 10017-6706)
Pauline R. Yu (Project Director: May 2010 to December 2015)

Endowment for additional research fellowships and increased stipends for fellows.

This proposal seeks a Challenge Grant of $1 million that, together with $3 million in matching funds, will help the American Council of Learned Societies to enlarge and enhance the central ACLS Fellowship Program. That program, which now provides research support each year to 57 humanities scholars, is one of the key components of our national infrastructure for supporting humanities research. ACLS Fellowships are intended as salary replacement to help scholars devote up to a year to full-time research and writing. This Challenge Grant would significantly assist us to resume the upward trajectory of the benefits our fellowship endowment can fund. Our ambitious fundraising goals call for us to raise $12 million in the next seven years, increasing the endowment balance to $84,925,000. If we do so, we will be able to increase the number of awards we can fund annually from 57 to 66 and increase the total amount of stipends offered from $2.5 million to $3.15 million.